


Dirge

by antiphonal



Category: Bob Dylan (Musician), The Band (Band 1968)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:14:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26273941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antiphonal/pseuds/antiphonal
Summary: Making music can be like making love. Sometimes it's sweet and romantic. Sometimes it's rough, challenging, and full of anger and pain, but exquisite nonetheless.
Relationships: Bob Dylan/Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm/Robbie Robertson (just a hint of a whisper of a suspicion of an implication)
Kudos: 6





	Dirge

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot help but feel that this is the most erotic exchange between musicians ever recorded. It feels so raw and personal. https://vimeo.com/207989023

As the last notes rang out in the studio, Robbie closed his eyes, feeling the shivers chase each other up and down his spine. Every hair on his body was alert, and his mouth tasted of cotton and bone.

“Think we got it,” came the return from the soundboard and he opened his eyes, finding Bob’s eyes drilling into his.

“Think so?” Robbie’s whisper was fragile, and Bob’s mouth smirked inside his smudgy goatee, while his eyes remained hot and curious. Robbie’s fingers stroked along the strings of his guitar, ghosting the runs, turns, and stings he had just poured out, bobbing and weaving between the stark punches of Bob’s piano chords, curling like hallucinatory smoke around his hard, accusing voice, pleading, cajoling, snarling, seducing, soothing, tempting, insinuating… Spectral fragments of the music evaporated off the strings, but he could feel them still singing on his fingertips, and the dilation of Bob’s eyes betrayed that he could hear them.

Bob jerked up from the piano bench, smoothing his jeans down his skinny thighs with impatient hands, and he strode toward the exit, a last look shot back at Robbie clearly implying, _Well, are you coming?_

Robbie set the guitar carefully on the piano and followed like it was old times, a puppyish eagerness to be led on Bob’s short leash.

Getting slammed against the cinder block wall was a shock, a memory, an urgent demand as Bob rubbed up on him, pulling him down to his hungry, biting kiss. Robbie bent his knees to get low enough, relying on the pressure of Bob’s thin body against his own to hold him up. His fingers trembled, too long to control as they slid into a tender cradle for Bob’s head.

Bob was far less gentle, delving into the near-impenetrable thickness of Robbie’s hair, twisting the curls around his fingers to strengthen his grip until it was almost painful. “Jesus,” he croaked as foreheads crashed together, blue eyes boring straight through to the soul. “Fuck, Robbie, how _dare_ you?”

Robbie felt as if the floor was falling away under him, and his arms went around Bob’s waist to hold on. “I couldn’t bear it if it was me,” he whispered finally, and for a moment Bob’s face softened, one hand slipping down over the high cheekbone, the hollow cheek.

“No,” he said tenderly, tracing the thin bow of Robbie’s mouth with a fingertip, lingering on the sharply-defined notch at the top of the arc. “Well…” Robbie’s stomach curled and his eyes hazed as Bob said, “I might hate you for how you make me feel when you play like that...”

Robbie’s curiosity must have been clear, and Bob pressed his thumb hard against Robbie’s lower lip, into his teeth, enough to draw blood.

“Like that,” he whispered and leaned in to suck his lower lip into his mouth, his tongue flickering across the damage, gathering up the blood.

Robbie shivered, and Bob pushed harder into him.

“Feel that?” he asked, drawing back far enough to catch his eyes.

Robbie tore his eyes away from the trace of blood smeared on Bob’s mouth, up to the acetylene-blue eyes. “Yeah,” he breathed.

“You still do that to me, you silver-stringed sorcerer,” Bob murmured, moving unsubtly against him. “Turning sound into mercury, math into soul…”

Robbie stifled the praise with his mouth, and time stretched out, filled with memory and muscle and hands improvising new variations onto familiar bodies. Then he drew back, looking up and down the back corridor, confirming that they were still alone.

“Always looking for something new,” observed Bob, indulgent but wistful.

“No!” protested Robbie hoarsely, his hands sliding down the back of faded jeans to hold him close. “Just don’t want…”

“Him to see?” Bob’s smile bent toward the sadness.

“Nooooo,” he whined, unconvincingly, then his voice dropped. “Just not here?”

Bob grinned, his hand sliding between them, a souvenir, a promise. “Just…” he caught his breath, then exhaled slowly on a juddering ”Wherever…” …suddenly leaned in to catch Robbie’s lower lip between his teeth again, tugging sharply, and he twinkled impishly, dropping his register. “Baby, just let me follow you down.”

Even Robbie wasn’t sure if the gravelly sound dragged up from his balls was a moan of pleasure or a groan at the teasing lyrical pun. “Fuck you,” he teased, pushing hard at Bob’s shoulder, and Bob laughed, grinding up on him again.

“Yes, please.”

Robbie chuckled, and big, strong guitar-player hands slid into Bob’s back pockets, pulling him up to set him firmly on his feet. “Should we go listen to the playback?”

Bob dipped his head from one side to the other, indicating his ambivalence. “I dunno, babe. I listen back to that, I’m liable to jump your bones right in front of God and everybody.”

“I’m sure God has already seen enough out of us.” A wry grin tugged at the corner of Robbie’s mouth, and he slid his hands from Bob’s hips to his own.

Bob folded his arms on his chest, looking up at Robbie almost grumpily. “Well, I can’t go back in there like this.”

Robbie played it more cool than he felt, crossing his arms and ankles and leaned back against the wall. “We can give it a minute.”

Bob’s cheeks puffed out and he turned to lean against the wall beside him.

Robbie watched the almost delicate profile, just blurred by a beard and mustache that barely qualified, then dragged a pack of cigarettes and a copper lighter out of his pocket. He set two cigarettes against his wounded lip and lit them both, then pocketed his pack and lighter again, handing one of the cigarettes to Bob.

The sharp blue eyes noted the faint smear of blood on the filter of the cigarette and squinted up at Robbie as if he thought he’d done that on purpose. Then his mouth quirked. “I suppose this means I’m Bette Davis.”

“Never,” retorted Robbie, exhaling a long, slow stream of smoke that broke and pinwheeled and twisted into his hair. He could see Bob feel the warmth of Robbie’s eyes on his face. “You can be Paul Henreid. _I’m_ Bette Davis.”

Bob chuckled and took a drag on his cigarette. “You damn sure are.”

“Don’t you forget it.”

Bob looked up at his face with an almost uncomfortable intensity. Then he picked a piece of tobacco off his tongue and nodded, flicking ash to the tiled floor, looking down the corridor to the dead end wall.


End file.
